February 14, 2009: MY GRANNY WAS A MANN

Granny Callie has been on my mind this morning...Valentines Day. Coming up on March 31 will be the 129th anniversary of her birth. She died at 99, and then only after she had been assured by me that I was not going to have any more children. I had always told her she could not die until I had my little girl whom I would name "Callie" for her. My cousin Edward beat me to that...but then, I never had a little girl, either. I had two delightful sons, instead.

When my Mom's health was failing back in 1995 and I was staying with her in Savannah, she said one of the things she wanted to do was apologize to me for my having to share a room with Granny during most of my growing-up years. I remember replying to Mom, "Apologize...for WHAT? I always thought I was the lucky one! I had her all to myself, Mama. None of the other grandkids had access to her and her wonderful stories the way I did. She and I were best friends. She had such a wonderful influence on me. I love the memories I have with her. You owe me no apologies for something I am so thankful for, Mom."

I don't ever remember not being as tall or taller than Granny. Her hair was always white and thin. And her boobs always hung long and flat against her chest, after many years of nursing and raising 7 healthy children. She grew up around Henderson, Elko, and Montezuma, GA, and she was thrilled when I moved into that area after graduating from college. Part of her family, the Keen's, are buried at the Henderson Baptist Church, where GA Hwys 41 & 26 meet. When we took her there to show us the graves she took special pains to show me B'John's grave...her brother, John Keen.

"Remember B'John's mule," she told me with a grin that day in the graveyard. We laughed and laughed!

So the story goes, she was to feed B'John's prize mule for him one long weekend while he was away. As a busy girl of 12 or 13, she decided that if she put all the weekend's corn and oats in the feed box on Friday night, she could go to her friend's house for a girls' sleepover and not worry about feeding the mule Saturday or Sunday. Since Callie was generally a dependable girl, no one else worried about the animal either.

Callie came home early Sunday morning to get ready for Church with her family. She ran out to make certain the mule had plenty of water, but she didn't go into the barn to check on the mule.

B'John returned Monday and immediately went to check on his mule. There it lay, dead, in its stall, bloated so big it seemed about to explode. They heard B'John hollering all the way in the house; Granny headed out the front door running hard, so sure was she that her brother was going to kill her! Her feeding shortcut had killed her brother's mule!

(It seems B'John's prize mule ate his weekend's food that first evening, drank plenty of water, got colic and died of it.)